Ethan Minsker

Books

Rich Boy Cries for Momma

Set in Washington, D.C. during the turbulent 1980s, Rich Boy Cries for Momma is a coming of age novel told from the perspective of the good son turned teenage punk rocker. While the “nice” kids of the Washington elite bully and reject him because of his dyslexia, the punk rock scene accepts him as he is. This fast-paced novel pulls us into the protagonist’s dangerous and erratic new world, filled with violence and drugs, while remaining funny and heartwarming. A disparate cast of characters—the rich, powerful, and successful, to the beaten, broken, and besmirched—become entangled in the punk rock subculture. We follow alongside our somewhere-in-between narrator as he wades through his learning disability, and navigates relationships that sometimes betray his perceptions, sometimes break his heart, and sometimes save his life.

Rich Boy Cries for Momma features ink and paper drawings that capture the essence of D.C. during the 1980s. The book also contains the lyrics of more than two dozen songs of the hard-core punk rock bands of that era.

Barstool Prophets

Barstool Prophets is not just the coming-of-age story of a young writer working in a bar in New York’s East Village, but also the chronicle of an iconic neighborhood and its wild spectrum of characters. From a love-addled bartender to a suicidal doorman to the junkies in Tompkins Square Park, they are a family, of sorts. In many cases, this is the only family some of them have, complete with all the joys and dysfunctions. The nameless narrator guides himself, the reader, and, in some ways, the entire neighborhood through the highs and lows of the past and into the present.